With the release of Part 2 of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay coming out on Friday November 20th, I thought I would take a look back at the entire series (primarily because I’ve never seen any of the movies or read any of the book for that matter). You can see any of my previous installments here.
Realizing the stakes are no longer just for survival, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) teams up with her closest friends, including Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), Gale (Liam Hemsworth) and Finnick Odair (Sam Claflin) for the ultimate mission. Together, they leave District 13 to liberate the citizens of war-torn Panem and assassinate President Snow, who’s obsessed with destroying Katniss. What lies ahead are mortal traps, dangerous enemies and moral choices that will ultimately determine the future of millions.
So I didn’t see any of the movies or read any of the books but I am still aware of the series and all of its three (and almost four) films so far. I think I must have been the only one who hasn’t yet. It’s human nature for things in the second film to not seem as climactic when you’ve previously known things about films past and future. This review will be based on this.
So this is the last film of the series and it picks up where the last film left off with Katniss (Lawrence) recovering from an attack by the brainwashed Peeta (Hutcherson). Katniss along with the leadership group from District 13 including President Alma Coin (Julianne Moore) and Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman), begin to mount an offensive against the Capitol and President Snow (Donald Sutherland). With most of the people of the other 12 Districts (I made a mistake in the previous review by saying District 12 was gone but actually some people survived) united with their cause, Katniss leads a unit with Peeta and Finnick (Claflin) (just to name a few) towards Snow and the Capitol facing various traps and enemy soldiers along the way. What I didn’t like as much about the previous installment, Mockingjay Part 1, was that it just seemed like filler and a just a buildup to the events of this film. I had hoped that after watching that film that it would have been worth it and that the next film would have had much more action and it kind of was and it kind of did. There was more of a payoff in this installment and it had much more action. I think the first half of this film had more action than all of the previous film. I found the plot here to be a little better and the pacing was also better since there seemed to be more progression as they did not spend as much time in one place as the film took us from District 13, to a few other districts, to the Capitol. The acting in this film, along with all of the previous films so far, has been great as Lawrence and Hutcherson were good (perhaps not as good as previous films but still good) despite the fact that I still disagree with the use of Hutcherson in this one. Woody Harrelson’s Haymitch Abernathy in a larger role and to a lesser extent Elizabeth Banks’ Effie Trinket were okay as well. Like I’ve said before, I haven’t read the books and this may be because of it but I was not a fan of the ending. Overall, this film serves as a fitting end to the series despite not standing out above the previous three films.
Score: 7.5/10
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The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.
